These early days of the 21st Century are odd times. We last quarter of the previous century saw an explosion of social media.
- Blogging (1992ish-)
- FriendsReunited (2000-2016)
- MySpace (2003-)
- Bebo (2005-2013 and 2021-2022)
- Facebook (2004-2025?), and
- Twitter (2006-2023?)
They’ve all come and, for the most part, gone again.
FriendsReunited was killed by shortsightedness, a lack of understanding of the product, and corporate greed. Ironically Twitter, 26-years later, is going down the same road. Twitter would probably have killed itself anyway, it was on a slow and gradual path to oblivion. And then along came Elongated Muskrat who spent $44bn (which he didn’t have) on a product he didn’t understand, that serviced a left-leaning, freedom-of-speech-loving (and therefore – on both counts – alien to him) community; this has greased the wheels of Twitter’s demise. A shame, but (in a way) that’s progress. The trend was established over a couple of decades ago.
I shall miss Twitter, whether it’s demise is due to being shut down by the Muskrat because it’s the wrong kind of free speech (the kind his Saudi bankers don’t like), or whether it drowns in a sea of commercialism or, indeed, it disappears into bankruptcy.